Being You

Chapter 1

"Jeremy!" wailed Ella thunderously as she stormed into her brother's room, stomping across the floor with a distinct lack of coordination. Her body felt heavy and unfamiliar.

"What?" the boy roared back. Except it wasn't much of a roar, his voice was high-pitched and feminine.

"What happened to y—?" Ella came to an abrupt halt, both in speech and movement. Her eyes grew wide as she took in the appearance of the person before her. "Um... Jer?"

He gulped and opened his mouth to speak, but as his eyes locked onto hers, he became unable to reply. He just shrugged helplessly, and Ella found herself gaping at the jiggling movement of his chest. Her eyes trailed upwards and took in the cute pixie cut, the heart-shaped face, the delicate features.

"Why are you a girl?" she hissed in confusion. She kept her voice down, not wanting to alert their parents, who were downstairs, to the crisis on their children's hands.

"Why are you a—a boy?" he mumbled, and Ella's shock was overridden with disgust as he reminded her of her own problem.

"Even worse, I look like you," she said emphatically, scrunching up her nose in distaste.

"So have we, like, swapped bodies?" Jeremy asked, eyes wide and staring a hole into the wall with the effort of trying to figure out what had happened.

"Dunno." Ella promptly lifted up her brother's shirt. He squealed and protested, crossing his arms over his ample breast in a defensive manner (which at any other time would have been extremely comical), but she wrestled his arms away and found what she was looking for. "Yep, that's my body. There's that panda shaped cluster of moles I've had for years."

Jeremy's fine eyebrows furrowed together and he leapt at Ella, checking the skin beneath her ear. "And you have my birthmark. But how the hell did this happen?"

"Some witch probably cursed us and wanted to teach us a valuable life lesson." Ella chortled at her brother's look of horror. "You don't honestly believe that, do you?"

He pursed his lips. "Well what am I supposed to believe? We just swapped bodies. That stuff only happens in, like, Freaky Friday and stuff."

"You've seen it? Wow."

"That's beside the point." Frustration crept into Jeremy's voice. "I can't be a girl!"

"Well, you are one now."

"You're not helping!"

At the note of panic in her brother's tone, Ella's expression softened. "I'm sorry Jer. You know I deal with stressful things using inappropriate jokes." She saw him breathe out slowly and nod. "For now, we're just going to have to make a plan in case this thing lasts for a while. We can't have Mum and Dad getting suspicious."

He nodded again and stood, making his way to the mirror. Ella stood behind him, staring at their reflections side by side. It was disorientating, seeing the wrong reflection stare back at you while someone else inhabited the body you were born with.

"You're fucking gorgeous, you know that?"

Ella looked down in shock at Jeremy as he stared at his reflection. Her reflection. She'd never thought well of her body, never particularly liked it. To hear her twin finally say this after sixteen years of practically being joined at the hip was a shock to say the least. She was suddenly choked with emotion and only managed to nod an acknowledgement of the compliment.

"I never wanted to admit it to you, your head's way too big already," Jeremy joked in a deceptively gentle voice.

"You bastard," Ella laughed, sniffing away the half-formed tears. "Well, you're not too bad yourself."

"What, these skinny arms?" Jeremy pinched her upper arm gently.

"Nothing wrong with skinny arms. At least you have a nice face. Most of the guys at school look like they've run head on into a brick wall a few times in their lives."

Jeremy let out a peal of laughter in surprise and Ella found herself grinning widely.

A call came from downstairs. "Kids! Dinner!" The twins exchanged a look and gulped.

"Just be a snarky little shit," Ella advised her brother.

"And you need to turn off the sarcasm for once," Jeremy returned, raising an eyebrow warningly.

A tense moment passed before another summoning shout came from downstairs. "Be right there, Mum!" Jeremy yelled out in hearty reply.

"Okay, let's go." Ella grabbed her brother's hand, smaller than hers for once, and led him out into the hallway.

"Nuh-uh." Jeremy pushed in front of her with his hips. "I'm Ella, remember?" He winked and galloped down the stairs ahead of her. He seemed to be trying to imitate her.

Ella rolled her eyes and followed at a more sedate pace. She heard Jeremy yell rowdily, "What's for dinner?" Is that really what I sound like to him? Ella shook her head and stepped into the kitchen, fighting the urge to bounce over energetically to the benchtop where her mum was serving up.

"Jer, you're quiet today." Ella looked up when she heard her dad's voice and was surprised to find that he didn't seem as tall as usual. "I'm always quiet," she said softly with a gentle smile, fighting the urge to shudder at the oddness of the voice emanating from her mouth. It was so much deeper and scratchier than she was used to.

Her dad chuckled. "I know you are." He ruffled her hair and she smiled. It was... nice to feel this closeness to her dad. He didn't seem to understand the real Ella, the one that usually had a girl's body. For some reason he seemed closer to Jeremy, and had higher expectations for her which meant that she felt she constantly disappointed him. Maybe that was why she acted so rebellious. Feeling uncomfortable with this realisation, Ella drew away and grabbed her plate, thankful for the excuse of her brother's reclusive demeanour to stay quiet during the meal.